Mysterious Nurse (2018)

Mysteriously Below Average

To be transparent, I'm not a huge KDrama watcher. I watched this for Lee Sungjong, and so long as his performance was bearable - that'd be good enough for me. Unfortunately, this limited expectation was about all that was met.

"Mysterious Nurse" seems to be one of Korea's takes on "Deadly Vision" (2004) or perhaps "The Eye" (2008) and done poorly. There's not one above average element for this drama. The story is a collection of reheated leftover plots for the nth time. Any story beats used are tired and uninspired. Anything that was slightly interesting in this drama was underdeveloped and ultimately dropped in favor,of more tired troupes and boring progression.

Since this is Lee Sungjong's ONLY solo acting credit, I was not expecting anything moving. Acting is not his forte, and that's okay. He gave a passable performance for this role. What's frustrating, is that seemingly the rest of the cast followed his lead, making this drama completely lackluster. There's not a single moment of true charm or emotion, from any cast member for any scene. It's a lot of rinse and repeat, neutral feelings and neutral execution scene after scene. It's not terrible, it's just not engaging. If this drama hadn't been packaged together as two, 45-ish minute episodes, I would've given it up around episode 3 for being so bland.

As someone who doesn't mind a clearly budget drama every once in awhile this one just feels off. And not in an atmospheric way. If you strip it down to the bare basics, it's perfectly serviceable. However, the overall vibe with the budget is so defeatist. The locations, lighting, sound recording, all feel like they gave up on being anything utter then average before the camera even began rolling.

I muddled through this production in one sitting, and honestly that's the way to do it. This drama isn't doing anything new, and this isn't anywhere near the cast's best performances. Unless you're a super fan for a cast member, or somehow really want to spend time with a below average production - absolutely skip it.

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